ERIC KNIGHT

1897-1943English

"Waste not the smallest thing created, for grains of sand make mountains, and atomies infinity."

Eric Oswald Knight was an English novelist and screenwriter, who is mainly notable for creating the fictional collie Lassie. He was born in Yorkshire, England, and had a varied career, including service in the Canadian Army during World War I and spells as an art student, newspaper reporter and Hollywood screenwriter.

Knight and his wife, Jere, raised collies on their farm in Pennsylvania. His novel Lassie Come-Home first appeared in 1940, it was adapted into a movie in 1943 and has been reprinted several times since then.

In 1943, at which time he was a major in the United States Army - Special Services, Knight was killed in an air crash in Dutch Guiana.